Gurugram court awards death penalty to PSO who shot dead judge's wife, son in 2018

A court here on Friday sentenced a security officer to death for murdering in 2018 the wife and son of a judge to whom he was assigned.

Wife of additional sessions judge (ASJ) Krishan Kant, Ritu (38) and his son Dhruv (18) were shot by Mahipal Singh on October 13, 2018 outside Arcadia shopping complex in Sector 49 here.

The death penalty was awarded by ASJ Sudhir Parmar of the Gurgaon district court.

While announcing the quantum of punishment, the judge termed Singh's act of gunning down ASJ Kant's wife and son in broad daylight as "rarest of rare case".

As a government servant, he was responsible to protect them. Instead, he breached their trust and gunned them down, the judge noted as Singh, who was present in the courtroom, maintained a stoic silence and kept his head bowed.

The court had held Singh guilty on Thursday and reserved the quantum of punishment for Friday.

Earlier, prosecution lawyer Vishal Gupta sought capital punishment for Singh as he referred to the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi who was shot dead by her two security guards -- Beant Singh and Satwant Singh.

The duo along with co-conspirator Kehar Singh was also awarded death sentence by the court of law, Gupta said.

Meanwhile, defence lawyer P S Sharma, urged the court to be lenient as Singh was the only bread earner of his family consisting of elderly parents, wife and two minor daughters.

The court, however, turned down his argument.